The surprising science of unconscious influences on our thought processes.

The human brain is truly bizarre. The more I know about it, the less I understand it. OK, so I finally came to terms with the fact that true and unfettered freewill is dead and buried some time ago. This was hard for me. My universe is not my play thing anymore. The decisions I make, the thoughts I entertain and even the people I'm attracted to are, at least to some extent, governed by processes outside of my awareness. And, if I'm not aware of these influences shaping my thoughts and behaviours, then I'm not truly free in making my own decisions.

Take for example, my lovely wife. I chose her, she chose me. A match made in heaven - perfect. End of story, right? Not quite.

In the IB Psychology Human Relationships option we study the learning outcome: Examine biological, psychological and social origins of attraction. [Actually, and off topic, if you don't study this option ask your Psychology teacher why - it's fascinating.]

It turns out that a lot of our attraction to another person is based on a particular set of immune system genes we both have, that we can both apparently sniff out (an olfactory sense). We are more attracted to those whom we share different major histocompatibility complex genes. Mix these genes together and we have children with stronger, healthier immune systems (conferring them survival and reproductive advantages vis-à-vis evolution). See Wedekind et al. (1995) for more details.

We have no idea that this is happening. Our thoughts, decisions and behaviour are being influenced without our awareness, in a major way. Which I can accept, I see the evolutionary logic in it. But Williams and Burgh, the latest study to land on my desk just does my head in. Period. Holding a cold drink makes me perceive you as being a cold person?

Williams and Bargh (2008) staged job interviews with their participants. Each participant in their cleverly crafted experiment assumed the role of the interviewer and the interviewees were confederates. Before the interviews commenced another confederate engaged the participant in a lift (elevator) and had them hold either an iced coffee or a hot coffee - the experimental condition. Interviewers given the cold drink to hold judged the hapless interviewee as being less 'warm' and were much less likely to give them the job.

The mere fact of unconsciously priming an individual with physical feelings of cold or warmth, influenced perception and ultimately decision-making and behaviour. Our conscious choices may not be such an exercise in free will as we would all like to believe. Our cognitive thought processes are very easily manipulated.

You can incorporate this information and this bizarre research study when you study or teach the IB Psychology CLOA learning outcome: With reference to relevant research studies, to what extent is one cognitive process reliable (for example, reconstructive memory, perception/visual illusions, decision‑making/heuristics)? The focus would be on decision‑making and the cognitive heuristics associated with much of our decision-making.

And finally, I know you're probably bursting with curiosity as to why feelings of hot and cold can have this very unusual influence on our thoughts. One of two reasons have been proposed. The first being that it is a simple side effect of having a fast, automatic response to familiar stimuli that lessens cognitive demands. Associations that can be formed automatically on the basis of prior knowledge or experience (i.e. priming) usually serve us well, and would have conferred survival benefits.

The other, less likely, explanation is that this is an innate response. We have been shaped by evolution to be more attracted to those who can keep us warm and less likely to freeze in our ice age caves.

Whatever the reason, knowing that first impressions are all important, hand your job interviewer a cup of delicious hot coffee and shake hands using the nice warm hand that was just holding their coffee. Just watch those job offers come rolling in.

Let's hope he has warm hands

Williams & Bargh (2008)

Best buy your date a hot chocolate, not that beer?Cold hands prime us to perceive cold personality characteristics in others, and warm hands prime the perception of warm personality characteristics in other people we interact with or observe.

In search of perfect answers to your IB Psychology examination questions? You will need to start with the command term. "Outline two principles that define the cognitive level of analysis" will be answered differently from "Explain the two principles that define the cognitive level of analysis." Outline and Explain are both examples of command terms that can be used in short answer exam questions. That difference needs to be apparent in your answer to each question - you can be sure that the beady little eyes of the IB examiner will be scrutinising your answer for this information.

When answering IB Psychology exam questions it is important to identify the command term in each question. These will determine how you should answer the question. Command terms such as 'explain', 'outline', ‘examine’, 'to what extent', and so on carry different meanings and this should be reflected in your answers. The command term in an examination question is very important. It provides two things the examiner is looking for and specifically awarding (or penalising!) you marks for. The first is structure. Are you structuring you answer according to the command term to answer the question? Secondly, has your answer ‘effectively addressed the command term’?

Below is one of the markband descriptors IB Psychology examiners are using to mark you Short Answer Questions (i.e. those three 8 mark questions in the Paper 1 exam). Not addressing the command term will limit your maximum mark to 6 marks, instead of the full 8 had your answer effectively addressed the command term.

The first commandment of IB Psychology

Your flashcard set is proving to be a great way to get my students practicing their command terms.- Jane Freeeman, 1st year IB Psychology teacher

Every IB Psychology examination question has a command term

In the long answer Extended Response Questions (ERQs), those 22 mark essay questions in the Paper 1 and 2 HL and SL IB Psychology exams, examiners are looking for and marking command term application in two of the criteria they are assessing.

If the command term is incorrectly addressed in your answer, you will be limited to a maximum of 6 marks for Criterion B (maximum possible 9 marks) and to a maximum of 2 marks in Criterion C (with a maximum possible 4 marks that can be awarded. That is an enormous 5 marks you are giving up for each Extended Response Question in the exams. And you will need to answer three ERQs if you are a HL IB Psychology student, and two if studying at SL. Another 2 marks across three SAQs will be forfeited in the HL and SL Paper 1 exam.Conclusion: If you do not learn your command terms and practice tailored answers to the IB examination questions according to the command term requirement you will be foregoing many marks and at least an entire grade boundary in your total IB Psychology score, possible two. Knowing your command terms could easily elevate your IB Psychology Diploma mark from a 5 to a 7 to ensure maximum success, or from a 3 to a 4 to avoid certain failure. Thus, the first rule of IB Psychology is: KNOW THY COMMAND TERMS. The tables below summarises how you should use the command terms when you are answering questions and how they apply to particular questions. I will actively look for a particular structure associated with the command term to be present in a student's answer when assessing their SAQ or ERQ answer. If their knowledge and comprehension is outstanding and the critical thinking deep and analytical, I still will not award full marks if I believe the command term has not been addressed. Harsh! There are 15 IB Psychology command terms in total. Only seven of these can be used to ask the extended response exam questions.

Important information about IB Psychology command terms: In the learning outcomes (see syllabus content) the command terms are associated with assessment objectives 1, 2 or 3 and indicate the depth of understanding that is required of students in relation to each item of content. The grouping of command terms under assessment objectives reflects the cognitive demand of each term and is related to Bloom’s taxonomy.

A command term used in an examination question will be:

The same as that specified in the related learning outcome, or

Another command term associated with the same assessment objective, or

A command term of less cognitive demand.

For example, if a learning outcome begins with the command term “explain”, an examination question based on this learning outcome could contain the command term “explain”, another command term associated with assessment objective 2 (such as “analyse”), or a command term associated with assessment objective 1 (such as “describe”), but not a command term associated with assessment objective 3 (such as “evaluate”). This means: A lower level learning outcome (e.g. ‘Explain one study related to localization of function in the brain’ will never be asked as a 22 mark ERQ in the IB Psychology examinations. It means you can plan your ERQ answers in advance and think about how you can adapt each answer if it is asked with a different command term. Don't delay. Start practicing today.

Picture this. You are a mad scientist. You place a large number of rats into individual containers filled with water, get out the stop watch and time how long it takes them to succumb to the inevitable – death by drowning. And, as if this isn’t mad enough already, half of these rats you then rescue from their watery grave. You take them out, towel them off, give them a bit of a blow dry, reassure them that it was all just a terrible mistake, and give them some food, a blanket to warm themselves and a teddy bear to cuddle as they try to overcome their ordeal. Then, (ha ha!) you place them back into their watery containers and time how long it takes them to drown this time. For real. Didn’t I tell you that you were a mad scientist? [For the impatient among you, skip to the end for the fascinating AND repellant results.] A bizarre study has just landed on my desk. In the IB Psychology Diploma course we examine in detail the ethics of research studies in the learning outcome: Discuss ethical considerations related to research studies at the cognitive level of analysis (also at the biological and socio-cultural levels of analysis). And those choosing the Abnormal Psychology option (and that’s most of you out there) will probably look at major depression as an affective disorder, and explore the learning outcome: Analyse etiologies of one disorder. This study by Richter (1957) can be applied to both learning outcomes in IB Psychology. Firstly, there are (now) clear guidelines in the American Psychological Association (APA) manual into the ethical treatment of animals when used in research studies. Guidelines which were obviously lacking in 1957. The following ethical guidelines have now been formulated:

Animal research should try to avoid harm to animals. Any harm caused to animal should be carefully weighed against the research’s potential to provide significant benefit to the health or welfare of humans or other animals, or if it is unavoidable (e.g., electrodes that monitor individual neuronal hippocampal activity in memory tasks). If the procedure would cause pain to humans, it should be assumed that it will cause pain to animals. Animal welfare should be monitored and animals should be euthanised as soon as possible if research causes long term/serious harm and/or affects their ability to live normally and pain-free.

Now while the results of Richter the mad rat torturer are astonishing (yes, we’ll come to these in a minute), there is no way they could have been predicted ahead of time. No hypothesis was formed, it was just a see what happens ‘study’ which, incidentally, came to provide great insight into some factors that can lead to depression. Thus, it fails the “…research’s potential to provide significant benefit …” test. In fact, what Richter was really interested in was the sudden deaths associated with Voodoo cultures when a victim had been cursed – a tenuous connection to drowning rats at best. It also begs the question as to what else he was doing to animals that was not making it into the scientific literature (rescuing them from the mouths of feral cats before feeding them to rabid dogs?).

Further: “If the procedure would cause pain to humans, it should be assumed that it will cause pain to animals (APA).” Super stressed animals suffering a protracted death cannot possibly be justified here. Poor rats. Trust your gut instincts. If this was not your initial reaction then consider taking this test.

Unethical? Definitely. So what insight does the research provide us into the etiologies of major depression? Now, we need to look at those results.

Foolish rats! Haven't you heard of Dr Curt Richter?

The average length of time at which rats stopped swimming and drowned in the ‘helplessness’ condition was short. Rats in this condition ceased swimming and drowned within minutes – they just gave up, submitting to what they believed was inevitable.

The rescued rats swam for hours. Up to sixty hours of swimming, paddling and treading water was recorded in this dastardly study. Rescue a rat, provide them with some hope and they will fight and try and hang on in there until they have exhausted their physical and mental limits.

Warning! Contains graphic content

A cause of depression linked suicide is the phenomenon of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is all about feeling trapped in an insoluble situation. A depressed person can believe that his or her situation is impossible to escape. Through experience, people can think, feel and behave as if their situation is helpless, when it is not. Repeated exposure to these negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours can lead to depressive thoughts, and eventually … well, we know how some people eventually believe they can find some control in their lives. Control over how they can ultimately escape the situation.

If you cannot find your own way out. You will need to reach out and find that helping hand. Let’s just hope that that hand doesn’t belong to a mad scientist.

Ever wondered what the perfect answer to an Extended Response Question looks like?

The Extended Response Questions (ERQs) in IB Psychology are the all important 22 mark essay questions in the Paper 1 and Paper 2 examinations, at both Higher and Standard Levels (HL and SL). The IB Psychology student has to master the preparation for these questions in order to achieve any level of success in their exams.

There are no surprises in the IB Psychology exams. You know exactly which ERQs could be asked, they are given to you in the learning outcomes for the course. And, as such, you need to prepare answers to each of these questions.

A headache brought on by a tricky ERQ

What a 22 marks out of 22 marks ERQ answer looks like ...

DISCUSS ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATED TO RESEARCH STUDIES AT THE BIOLOGICAL LEVEL OF ANALYSIS.

This essay will offer a balanced review of ethical considerations related to research studies at the biological level of analysis (BLOA). TheBLOAis based on mental processes such as perception, attention, language, memory, and thinking. The essay will then apply these ethical considerations to two specific research studies at the BLOA where ethical concerns have been raised –Schachter & Singer (1962) andthe Case study of HM(Curtis, 1981).Ethicsis the moral correctness of a specified conduct – in this case, the moral correctness of animal and human research at the CLOA. In cognitive psychology research, ethics must be considered to ensure participants (humans and animals) are not harmed and that research conducted is ethically valid. Researchers should always conduct research in an ethical manner and studies should always be critically evaluated for ethical issues. Ethical standards formulated by the American Psychology Association (APA, a scientific and professional organisation that represents psychologists) states that all research done in psychology, including that at the BLOA, must abide bysixspecific ethical guidelines, these include: 1. Theprotectionof participants - Participants should be protected from physical and mental harm and distress (humiliation, stress, injury, etc.) and that participants should not be forced to reveal personal information. 2. Consent - Participants should be informed of the true aims and nature of research before giving consent. However, sometimes it is not possible to give full information about research. This is especially true ifparticipant biascould be expected; i.e., knowing the true aims of a study may affect participants’ behaviour and thus the results of a study. For example, knowing beforehand that a study is researching how an emotion (e.g., anger) is related to physiology (e.g., adrenaline – a neurotransmitter and hormone) could lead to participants responding more cautiously and thoughtfully to the experimental conditions than they otherwise would (Schachter & Singer, 1962). It is also considered acceptable not to give full informed consent ifno harmis expected (e.g., using MRI scans to examine changes in the structure of the hippocampus of London taxi drivers as a result of intense learning –Maguire et al., 2000). A guardian or family member should also give consent to the study if the participants are children (under the age of 18) or unable to give consent (e.g., a participant severely affected by Alzheimer’s disease). 3. Right to withdraw - Participants should beinformedof their right to withdraw their participation and data at any time in the study (even at the end) without penalty. This is important because individual differences means that researchers can never be certain if a particular participant will be experiencing stress and discomfort or not. 4. Confidentiality - Data collected in a study should remain confidential and anonymous because it is important to protect participants from possible consequences that may result from their data (e.g., some health insurance companies insist that any cognitive degenerative disease diagnosis such as AD be made available to them). Identifying information and individual responses will not be shared with anyone who is not involved in the study. 5. Deceptionshould be avoided, however slight deception is considered acceptable if:

Participant bias would result from participants knowing the true aims of the study

The research has potential significant contribution

It is unavoidable

The deception does not cause any distress to the participant, including upon being informed of the deception.

6. Debriefing - Any deception must be revealed and justified and participants should leave the study without undue stress. Findings of the research should be made available to participants as soon as possible. Ethical guidelines for animal research (APA) have also been formulated: Animal research should try to avoid harm to animals. Any harm caused to animal should be carefully weighed against the research’s potential to provide significant benefit to the health or welfare of humans or other animals, or if it is unavoidable (e.g., electrodes that monitor individual neuronal hippocampal activity in memory tasks). If the procedure would cause pain to humans, it should be assumed that it will cause pain to animals. Animal welfare should be monitored and animals should be euthanised as soon as possible if research causes long term/serious harm and/or affects their ability to live normally and pain-free. Research studies such as Curtis (1981) and Schachter and Singer (1962) raise significant ethical considerations.The case study of HM(Curtis, 1981) HM was man who lost the ability to remember information after a brain operation. The operation was clearly a disaster for HM, although he probably never understood that because he could never learn what happened to him or if he did he would forget it within a couple of minutes. This was a tragedy for HM but an opportunity for any psychologists who became aware of the case. They queued up to study HM’s memory, assessing it with all kinds of tests and checking out a wide range of hypotheses concerning the theoretical distinctions between long-term and short-term memory, and between explicit and implicit memory. They used all sorts of stimuli, including electric shocks and white noise (see review: Corkin, 1984). He has probably had more words written about him than any other case in neurological or psychological history (Ogden & Corkin, 1991). There were a set of ethical issues with most of the studies performed on HM, which include: 1. Participant Protection – HM was protected from harm during most studies, but obviously not when electric shocks were used. He may have experienced mental distress from dramatic changes in environments, carers and different researchers coming and going. 2. Consent – HM could not be fully informed or give consent to these studies due to his general cognitive functioning. He would not understand the nature and aims of the study and therefore, it was not possible to gain fully informed consent. 3. Withdrawal – HM would not have been able to express any desires to withdraw from the studies as it was likely, his poor memory would mean that he was not aware that he was participating in an experiment after a short period of time had passed. 4. Confidentiality – His identity was kept anonymous as best as possible as 'HM' is just his initials. His real name was in the end revealed, and his case was exposed to the world of psychology and HM was readily identifiable in video footage. 5. Deception and debriefing – HM was not debriefed in most studies study. However, as he did not know that he was being studied, he would not desire a debriefing. In conclusion, most of the memory studies in which HM participated would not meet the ethical requirements necessary for research into the BLOA and would not be approved by the ethics boards of universities today. The ethical procedures surrounding case study patients today are much more prescribed and regulated.Schachter and Singer (1962) Schachter and Singer aimed to test whether cognition (the interpretation of a state of arousal) was needed to interpret and transform ambiguous physiological states into specific emotions. To do this they recruited volunteers to receive a vitamin injection and informed them that they would be participating in vision experiments. None of the participants received a vitamin injection. Three of the four experimental groups received an adrenalin injection (a potent hormone associated with fight or flight response), and the control group a saline injection. In addition to this deception, one of the experimental groups was provided with misinformation about the side effects of the ‘vitamin’ injection (the actual side effects of adrenaline). The next experimental condition saw half of the participants being manipulated into an emotional state of anger (the half into a state of ‘euphoria’ or happiness). There were a set of ethical issues in this study, which include:Deception – Participants were deceived about the aims and nature of the study. Participants were told the study aimed to test the effects of the supposed vitamin injection on vision. But it was actually testing the two factor theory of emotion - emotion arises from a combination of cognition and arousal - using adrenaline. All participants were deceived about the injection they were receiving, and were actually administered adrenaline or a placebo (saline solution). Furthermore, some participants were given false side effects of the adrenaline injection that they were given – headache, numbness, itchiness in the feet However, deception was used because participant bias would result from participants knowing the true nature of the study and the research has potential significant contribution to understanding the causes of emotion. Consent – Participants were not informed of the true nature and aims of the study before giving consent. They did not know that the study aimed to investigate the two factor theory of emotion. They did not know that they would be receiving adrenaline or placebo injections. Some participants did not know the true effects of the adrenaline injection they were given, they were either given false effects or no effects. Again, however, being fully informed of the true nature and aims of the study probably would have resulted in participant bias.Participant protection – Researchers did not protect participants. Participants may have had a harmful reaction to the adrenaline and researchers did not ensure that participants would not experience harm from the injection.Debriefing – Participants were adequately debriefed and the deception was revealed and justified. In conclusion, this study does not meet the ethical requirements necessary for research into the BLOA and would not be approved by the ethics boards of universities today. The of the use of a potent hormone adrenaline being administered while simultaneously attempting to induce anger in the participants raises ethical concerns about the protection of participants, as does the significant levels of deception involved. These factors are not likely to be outweighed by the significance of research argument.General conclusion: Most modern day research into the BLOA is seriously considered in terms of its ethics by both the researchers themselves and by governing oversight by the governors of ethics boards. If deception is to be involved it is required to be slight and protection of participants paramount. We have seen that some previous research into the BLOA has not always met the requirements of the ethical guidelines now required in this field.

You are on a jury, the facts and evidence are being presented and it's your job to weigh all of that information and make a judgement on the defendant's guilt. Most people could do this objectively and not let personal biases influence their decisions, right?Wrong. There is a double whammy when you're a black defendant in the American justice system. We have known for a long time that black Americans are far more likely to be convicted than their white counterparts, and given harsher prison sentences when found guilty (see Three Worst Jury Verdicts).

Thanks to a team of Yale researchers, we now know that the criminal justice system is likely to be influenced by other negative stereotypes too. In the study, mock jurors were presented with a case of cheque fraud. The defendant was identified from one of four photographs (the experimental condition): large female, slim female, large man or slim man.

There was no fat bias when men and women were evaluating the guilt of the male defendants, and no fat bias emerged when female participants were judging the female defendants. But male jurors were significantly more likely to exhibit a fat bias when assessing the guilt or innocence of the female defendants. Males were more likely to judge fat women as being more likely to be guilty of cheque fraud on the basis of the same evidence, than the slimmer defendant.

But wait, it gets worse ... Slim male participants were the worst of all. Not only were they much more likely to find the obese woman defendant guilty, they were more likely to ascribe the obese woman defendants as being 'repeat offenders' and 'having more awareness of their crimes'.

As you explore the IB Psychology learning outcome: 'Explain the formation of stereotypes and their effect on behaviour', you will come to learn that that these negative stereotypes are activated automatically and below the level of conscious thought. They are also very, very difficult to overcome. Crash diet if you're a woman facing jury trial in America?

We're the smartest animal in the world. Fact. But, the human brain isn't the largest in the world. Fact. Nor do we have the largest number of neurons. Fact. So what explains our intelligence?

This TED Talk dives deep into neuroscience and evolutionary theory and draws the conclusion that our extraordinarily, even bizarrely, dense cerebral cortex uses the most energy for its weight in the animal kingdom. And the only way to release all of that energy from food is through developing the ability to cook.The IB Biological Level of Analysis asks you to "Examine one evolutionary explanation of behaviour." Can you make the link?